Yes, unfortunately, this is happening. And Spider-Man’s barely even in this issue, but it launches a 3-part story, so I have to. Look… at that Spider-Man up there. Look at his absolutely deformed body. Oh, Rob Liefeld… why. I believe this crossover marks his final appearance on the blog, so at least I got that going for me. X-Force, of course, used to be The New Mutants, until a mysterious militant mutant (Alliteration!) from the future showed up to become their mentor, turning them into more of… an X-Force. This new mentor, to be called Commander X, was the brainchild of Louise Simonson, but then Rob Liefeld got on the book, became super popular, and got to co-create the character, who he insisted be named “Cable” for some reason, eventually running Weezie off the book and now claiming 100% credit for her character idea. It’s a feel good story. But that was, like, 2 or 3 years ago, at this point. Now Rob’s main man is Fabian Nicieza, whose participation in garbage like this made me think he sucks. The Spider-Man stuff we’ve seen from him on the blog has sometimes been surprisingly enjoyable, especially WEB 38. This won’t be, tho! Rob inks himself and Joe Rosas colors. Let’s get some exposition.
That’s Syrn, daughter of Banshee. Same powers, mostly the same costume. She says Black Tom is her cousin, but I thought he was Banshee’s cousin. Juggernaut is on the roof of one of the World Trade Centers for no reason other than making it easy for them to square off. What does she think she’s gonna do, who teams of X-Men can’t beat The Juggernaut. She gets punched in the face for her efforts, thinks about how that was stupid (Correct!) and decides to try again. Tom pops up calling himself her uncle (Great writing!) and zaps her with his goofy shillelagh. As she floats away, she thinks about how she thought Tom would be with the hostages, like that would’ve helped. Then X-Force shows up in a big, terrible looking spaceship or something. X-Force at the moment being Cable, future soldier and secretly Cyclops & Jean Grey’s adult child, Domino, with the luck powers and all, Cannonball from New Mutants, Feral, a Morlock who’s just a stupider looking and angrier Wolfsbane, Warpath, the little brother of dead X-Man Thunderbird in more or less the same suit (With big stupid shoulderpads), Boom Boom, another 80s mutant rejiggered into a child solider, and Shatterstar, a guy form Longshot’s alternate dimension home whose mutant power is swords and having a couch cushion on his face. I honestly don’t know what his power’s supposed to be, actually. We quickly cut away to learn former new Mutant Sunspot and his business partner Gideon are among the hostages, and then, as Syrn enters the empty, backgroundless void that is X-Force’s ship, we see everyone but Domino & Boom Boom:
Cable’s plan is to drop Warpath down to fight Juggernaut by himself, which shows exactly what a master strategist he is, but this is X-Force, so everyone’s talking in D-level tough guy slogans and Warpath can’t wait.
Warpath replied, “Over the edge is where we LIVE, spam in a can.” I mean, if you want a succinct summary of the quality of writing you get in an average issue of X-Force, that’s it. The rest of the team comes down behind them in a gratuitous 2-page spread (Minus Boom Boom, left driving the plane) and hit the roof to shoot and stab and smash and whatnot various goons who weren’t there a second ago, and then Cable says they can’t kill people or cause much destruction due to the hostages and the media presence. Inside, Gideon, who is an External, and I do not know what that means, attacks Black Tom and gets shot in the face for it. Everyone is so dumb in this comic. Sunspot comes in next, scoring a few hits and some dreadful dialogue before getting beat up. Then Cable shoots Tom in the shoulder. Say, that was easy. Except…
Rob Liefeld apologists, of which there is a surprising number, tend to bat away criticisms like “he doesn’t draw backgrounds” and “his panel-to-panel continuity is nonexistent” and “he doesn’t seem to know what human beings look like” by saying “but his art has so much energy!” Does it? Do these 2 close-cropped implications of a punch leap off the page? I don’t think so. They get in 2 whole more punches on the next page, too, and then it’s finally time for you-know-who to show up:
These Spider-Man drawings are a disaster, as anticipated.
That reads different from here. This was before the 1993 WTC bombing, even. Well, next time, we see Todd take over this riveting tale, and begin a gimmick that will make this story especially difficult to cover on the blog…